Wash Your Hands!!

They say, cleanliness is a nature that comes naturally to you. Of course, it can be hammered into somebody too. The best suitable examples for this are my best half and our equal half!! I can confidently say that, the most heard phrase by our little one, in his whole life till date

is, “Wash your hands!”. I can also say that constant yelling, nagging, requests, stern looks, detailed explanations have transformed them from ‘ugly dirty ducklings’ to ‘neat and clean beautiful swans!’. Of course, all this has happened not without an outburst or a repartee! The senior’s favorite wisecrack is, “Haath ghis gaye hain, dho dho ke’!” (=My skin might erode one of these days because of excessive hand washing!)

So, I can say that the men in our little family, though not natural ambassadors of cleanliness & hygiene, but have adopted the role gracefully!

Having been an ardent devotee of the God of Cleanliness and Hygiene for so many years, I now think that cleanliness is a bane. Yes, this is believed NOW by yours truly!!

Why??

I mean, the 3 mortals inhabiting our home are epitome of cleanliness and hygiene and I have no complains whatsoever with all of us in this regard…

But what do you do when you have friends, acquaintances or neighbors who do not believe in your principles and doctrines of cleanliness and hygiene! I really mean what do you do, when…

They straight away open the fridge and drink water from the bottle, without washing their hands and ignore your and your help’s request to have water in a glass, which they are offering RIGHT AWAY!

They’d eat on the dining table without washing hands again, even if they had removed their shoes a minute ago, of course with their hands, and opening-closing all casserole lids et al!

While in deep thought they’d take their finger deep into a nasal tunnel and the very next moment use that hand to pick up namkeen or biscuit kept in the plate!

They taste the food they are cooking with a spoon, add the salt, and use the same ‘used’ spoon into the dish and check the final taste!!

They put a piece of chicken or a part of the vegetable from THEIR plate back into the serving bowl, when they are not able to finish it, saying that, one should not waste food!!

While serving food into their plate from the serving bowl, they’d touch the serving spoon with their used spoon, or leftover food or even leftover bones!

Wiping the spoon or the plate with their piece of clothing viz dupatta or the sari or even the T-shirt!!

They’d keep all the spoons, napkins directly on the dining table on which their child was jumping up and down a minute ago or even sitting without his UG!!

They’d use the toilet and come out without the mandatory hand wash!!

And going through all these unclean activities, surely fill you with revulsion!!

I am very upset with my parents who introduced me into the world of cleanliness when I was barely old enough to say ‘A for Always; B for Bath; C for Clean’ and then ingrained the pearls of hygiene deep into my brain so much so that all my 5 senses revolt if anything is not clean!! If I had not learned all these ‘good’ habits from my parents, I would have relished the food and would be unperturbed and not cringe whenever I encountered any unclean act near me!

I know, all this may sound very petty or trivial to many, but I know for sure, that these are not some minor aberrations!

Because, if they were, then I believe, we should not be hesitant in using anybody’s toothbrush or even tooth pick! We should be sharing the same towel freely with anybody!! And the same dental floss should last for years and years! Right?!

Wrong!! If we are so particular about our toothbrush, toothpick et al, then I believe we should be particular about hygiene too! We should respect other’s right to cleanliness too!!

Studies show that, 80 percent of infections are transmitted by direct and indirect contact, thus, hand washing is the most important thing you can do to protect yourself!And others!

Every hand you shake, every hand rail you touch, every door knob, every light switch, every counter top, every dog you pet…simply everything you touch can place dangerous germs on your hands.

The importance of hand washing can be assessed by looking at a list of germs found on human hands. Here are a few:

36 comments

Lets shake hands on this one baby….or do I see u eyeing my hands….. 🙂Well ….its the same story here of shouting & screaming in all possible intonations and the mission towads perfection is on …85% accomplished ….rest on the way !!!!

It has been of the cleanest and most hygienic posts that I have read in the recent past.Well done.I am generally particular about washing my hands,but now I will ensure I do so more regularly.You have created one more clean human. Thank you

Hmmm…But sometimes over cleanlinesses may lead to less resistance against diseases. The immunity system works in such a way that it can fight any germ when strong, but when weakened God knows! But over cleanliness sucks, but I guess after removing our shoes we should clean our hands!

Good post!Useful for our neighbourhood uncles and newly married couples and the classic teens!Cheers!

Wonderful post! I agree with each an every point you mentioned. You are in such a tight spot when such unclean acts happen in front of you…you can neither say anything, nor you are happy suffering quietly.

And yes, there loads of people around like that. Wish they read this and take home some learnings.

This is such an informative, funny and serious post, all rolled into one!

The points that you mentioned are so right. It is so important to be conscious about cleanliness. I am going to recommend this post on my blog for other bloggers to read too. I am also planning to jot down my thoughts too.

With utmost satisfaction, i would like to inform you that this post of yours has been selected as a suiting piece to honor my newly installed wall of fame. So, I would like you to take out some of your precious time and gimme a small writeup introducing this post in about 40-50 words to mail address:rahul938@gmail.comI would also appreciate it if you could nominate some more posts(including yours) which can be pinned up on my wall.

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Hey! I am Shilpa Garg.
Welcome to A Rose is a Rose is a Rose! I’m glad you’re here. Here you will find thoughts, views, opinions and observations of things around me, as they are, not as they should be. Read More…